


my heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue

by jesseabrams



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Post-Prison, Prison Arc, and this was something i really wished was explored more, anyway idk, i love jake and jakes emotions, like i know he went on leave but what about returning to normal at home, this is just season 5 stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 19:56:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20570003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesseabrams/pseuds/jesseabrams
Summary: It happens this way: the sun is setting and he’s leaving the precinct to go home to his now fiancee and it’s cloudy. First it looks like it’s going to rain, then it starts, and suddenly, the world becomes so loud that he can let himself break without fear that someone else is listening.or,coming home from prison is a lot harder than jake expects it to be.





	my heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [childishperalta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/childishperalta/gifts).

> this is dedicated to my friend emily (@boldperalta on twitter) !! she made me a very cute andy edit to if my heart was a house by owl city and this was my gift in return to her <3 enjoy (also look for more notes at the end)

Jake’s world flips upside down so quickly that when it happens, his feet are still on the floor and he’s hanging from the now-ceiling like a bat.

He’s more than aware of what’s happening-- his life is catching up to him faster than he can handle. The boxes of trauma and of things he’d rather forget that he packed away so neatly so long ago were emptying by a force not of his own volition, and it was overwhelming in a way that most things were not.

Jake can handle, like, _so many_ other people’s trauma.

He can be there for a victim’s grieving mother and stare death down directly until he’s blue in the face. He can negotiate dire situations until he feels like he can’t speak anymore. He’s not a stranger to gore or far-too tragic stories, but his own demons are creatures he’s never met with faces he can’t fathom, and now they’re sitting in his back seat, breathing down his neck.

He’s in his car.

Jake realizes that usually, he’s in his car when these sorts of things rear their heads.

It happens this way: the sun is setting and he’s leaving the precinct to go home to his now fiancee and it’s cloudy. First it looks like it’s going to rain, then it starts, and suddenly, the world becomes so loud that he can let himself break without fear that someone else is listening. 

Ultimately, it was the rain that had drawn it out of him. Something about the sky just letting it all out made him want to do the same, and the pounding against his windshield created a loud enough sound that he really didn’t have to listen to himself. Today wasn’t even particularly difficult-- today had been tame as far as days lately went, but he hadn’t realized how much burying he was really doing.

For six months, Jake had been sent off to Florida, not allowed to see his home (Brooklyn, _Amy_), or have any contact with anyone not in the residence of Coral Palms and Holt. He’d been wrongfully accused of robberies he didn’t commit and sent to prison. For two months, he feared for his life and risked it, multiple times, trying to get out and get home. 

He thought the most about Amy on both occasions. It had dawned on him a while ago that if something happened to him, it would actually affect other people. Since he and Amy had gotten serious, he thought frequently about her on specifically dangerous outings; whenever he had to put his vest on, he’d send her a quick text if she wasn’t there with him. That hadn’t changed-- Jimmy Figgis was out for his head, he was extra careful in his footing for Amy’s sake. In prison, Romero and company were trying to kill him, he was actively careful in every subsequent action for Amy’s sake.

Every time, at the very end, he’d come home. These last few times had been no different. 

He was home, he was home, he was home. Everything around him screamed Brooklyn-- no, _literally_. His car’s license plate, the precinct that he can see in his rearview mirror so clearly belonged to New York. The street carts with various meats that he always swore he’d try all of one day-- New York. He was home.

Where was his head at?

The answer seemed to have been everywhere else. It surely wasn’t in the good frame of mind he swore he’d been in all day. Every bit of complacency he’d built up had more or less left him. His ragged breathing was what grounded him again.

In this moment, it was hard not to think about everything. He holds himself with such bravado. Jake Peralta, uncrackable rock-- nothing can shake him, he’s made of steel, until that’s not true anymore. Jake Peralta: weathered building with creaky framework-- this was the final storm needed to send his structure toppling.

Everything was just so heavy; in this moment, he could feel the pounding of his heart and the reminiscent press of the barrel of a gun against his temple. He could feel the burn in his stomach start to travel upward, the fight or flight kicking in that he knew meant to run, someone was after him and they wanted him dead. He was held down with the weight of every emotion he didn’t let himself feel before, and there was nowhere for these things to go, since every situation they applied to was done and over with.

Typically, he was strong for everyone else’s sake. He shouldered the weight so no one else would panic, so that everyone had someone else to lean on when the going got tough-- it was only now that Jake understood that, while being strong for everyone else, it was vital for him to allow himself to be weak for his own sake.

* * *

“You didn’t text, I wasn’t sure what you’d want for dinner, so I just got Subway and-- hey, _whoa_, are you okay?” Amy’s tone was quick to shift. Her face read concern all over, and if she was reading Jake the right way, he’d come inside straight from a meltdown. 

She felt this impending, more or less; Jake had been strong, aside from taking leave to his desk when he got home first. It had been a few weeks now; he had time to simmer, this was coming. The breakdown she had anticipated was upon them, and as prepared as she thought she’d been, seeing it, or the remnants of it, hurt more than she had imagined it would.

Amy had seen every version of Jake there was to offer-- she’d seen him so drunk he couldn’t walk straight, so sick that he didn’t want to do anything but melt into his pillow, so mad that his knuckles were white and only she could rub the tension out (and she could, every time). But this was new-- this was a version of Jake that crushed her deeply, and ignited the need to fix everything bothering him right there, right then.

“Hey, that’s... no, that’s fine, I just-- can I have a hug? Please?” The added please was a little apologetic in it’s undertones; Amy must’ve been so confused, and he really wasn’t offering her any context. Sure enough, her arms looped around his neck, and his around her waist; he was relieved to be here, breathing in her vanilla-strawberry shampoo and her sweet perfume, anchored to her waist where he never wanted to leave again.

“Did something happen at work, babe?” she asked him, on the off chance that this wasn’t what she suspected. She wouldn’t lift her chin from where she was settled into the curve of his shoulder; Jake didn’t seem like he wanted to let up on touch, and given his visual distress, she wasn’t taking the physical contact from him until he wanted to be away from it. Her fingers gently rubbed circles against the tightness in his muscles, and she was relieved to feel the slight release that came with it.

Jake’s first response was a sigh. That was indicative enough that no, it wasn’t work, but it was everything else-- what she’d been prepping for. He didn’t have to say anything for her to understand; she just knew, and that was for the better. Jake wasn’t exactly wonderful with emotional words-- she knew this, and she loved him. 

“I know,” she started softly. The tips of her fingers slid up the curve of his spine, gently pushing into the hair at the nape of his neck. Amy switched their positions slightly; she wanted to let Jake be small. She could be-- she was-- big enough for the both of them. Cradling his head against her shoulder, she held her fiance, and felt every ounce of ache he was harboring with him. The cards he’d been dealt weren’t easy to hold, and if she could, she’d do everything in her power to swap hands with him.

“Can we just lay down for a little while?” 

Decidedly, Subway could wait.

When Jake first got home from prison, he and Amy did some mild rearranging of their bedroom. He couldn’t sleep with his back to the open air, so they pushed the bed frame up against the wall. He slept on the left as it was, which made it so he could sleep with his back parallel to a secure, impenetrable surface.

In the few weeks passing since he’d gotten home, Jake felt well enough to move the bed back to where it was before he needed certain sleeping arrangements. Tonight, with Amy’s help, he pushed the bed back up against the wall he’d grown to be so familiar with, and tried not to feel like he was taking steps backward.

“I didn’t expect this to be easy on you,” Amy reassured, her thumbs rubbing soft circles into Jake’s hips. He was usually the little spoon, their positioning wasn’t any different now than it usually was, but she held him with more intention than she typically would. Jake needed someone to be strong for him, and she was happy to be that person.

“I know, but I didn’t expect it to be this hard,” he exhaled, eyes shut. Frantic hands searched for hers just to hold, and Amy met him against his stomach, fingers interlocking as quickly as they possibly could. She soothed his nervous fidgeting, rubbing the pads of her fingers over his shaking palms.

“You went to prison, that’s pretty messed up stuff, Jake,” she reasoned. On more than one occasion, she’d heard Jake say that prison was hell-- that could be revered as a surface level joke, but Amy went home with him every day. She watched him jump at the sudden slam of an apartment door above them and she heard him exhale his relief when footsteps would shy away from their door onto someone else’s.

The issue wasn’t wholly what had happened to him. He was more than aware that the things he was dealing with were traumatic, and had lasting effects on how he performed in his day to day life. The true issue lay in the fact that, as much as he could handle by himself, this was a little too much to carry on shoulders solely his own.

After a stretch of gratuitous silence, Jake nodded. “I feel like I should probably start dealing with this stuff head on,” he said softly. He kept the admittance quiet, afraid that he’d disappoint whoever was listening when he ultimately went back on it if he said it too loud. Amy stayed quiet; Jake was reaching some sort of breakthrough, and he needed understanding more than he needed advice. “Not, like, therapy or anything. Therapists are--”

“Jake--”

“Right,” he refocused, eyes flickering shut. The dark offered to him was comfortable enough; he could be honest here, with Amy breathing lightly against him and his forehead ghosting the wall he was facing. “I just think I probably should start talking this stuff out instead of ignoring it.”

Amy gave him a squeeze. First with her arms around his torso, and then her fingertips squeezing his. “Okay, babe,” she agreed, lips lilting upward. She wouldn’t push him in any direction-- this was Jake’s issue to tackle. She would just be here for the ride, however he needed her to be.

“Thank you,” he exhaled. Any remaining bit of tension left his vessel; his heart rate slowly returned to normal, and he felt every anchor he carried home fall, then dissipate before they had a chance to hit his feet. 

“Anything you need,” Amy nodded, laying a light kiss against the back of his ear. Jake recoiled lightly, shivering into her touch. His eyes opened again and he offered her a smile, the crown of his head rested against her shoulder. “You wanna do dinner now? We can put on Die Hard, whichever one you want,” she offered, one hand escaping his hold only to travel up his bicep and squeeze gently.

“You said you got Subway-- herb and cheese, right? Toasted? With roast beef?” Jake asked, his tone reflecting the utmost importance (because these were dire things, _of course_).

“Duh.” (He didn’t know why he thought otherwise for even a second.)

A genuine smile now-- gap in his front teeth on display for only a fleeting moment, but it was enough. Things had moved toward being okay.

The bed would stay against the wall for the night, but Jake knew nothing and no one was on the other side attempting to disturb his peace of mind. Only Amy, John McClane, and this sandwich had residence in their apartment-- his anxieties had gone elsewhere, even if only for an evening or two.

Bravery in small doses is still bravery at all, and he’s working hard on commending himself for the little things.

**Author's Note:**

> i love them . also i'm working on chap 2 of world turn currently i'm like 1K+ words into it but creating has been really hard lately w/ traumatic anniversaries coming up but i made a dent so it's coming!! 
> 
> as always: comments (!!!) and kudos are appreciated, thank you guys


End file.
